MRS Guidelines for Mystery Shopping Research Mystery Shopping Research... · MRS Guidelines for...
Transcript of MRS Guidelines for Mystery Shopping Research Mystery Shopping Research... · MRS Guidelines for...
MRS Guidelines for Mystery Shopping
Research
October 2011
Updated September 2014
MRS is the world’s largest association for people and organisations that provide or
use market, social and opinion research, business intelligence and customer
insight.
MRS
The Old Trading House
15 Northburgh Street
London EC1V 0JR
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7490 4911
Fax: +44 (0)20 7490 0608
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.mrs.org.uk
Company Limited by guarantee. Registered in England No 518686. Registered office as above.
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Table of Contents
Introduction 4
The principles of the MRS Code of Conduct 5
Definitions 6
1: Planning the mystery shopping exercise 10
2: Types of Mystery Shopping
A: Own Organisation 13
B: Competitor Organisations 16
C: Regulatory and Other Bodies 17
3: Quality Control 18
4: Researchers’ Responsibilities to “Shoppers” 20
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Introduction
These Guidelines interpret the MRS Code of Conduct (revised 2014) and provide additional
best practice guidance. Unless otherwise stated, Guidelines are not binding. Their aim is
to promote professionalism in the conduct of research.
Research is founded upon the willing co-operation of the public and of business
organisations. It relies on the confidence of those involved that it is conducted honestly,
objectively, without unwelcome intrusion and without harm to participants. Its purpose is
to collect and analyse information and not to create sales or to influence the opinions of
anyone participating.
Every participant must be assured that research projects are carried out in strict
accordance with the Code of Conduct and that their rights of privacy are respected.
Rules from the Code of Conduct applicable in each section of this document are stated in
the shaded boxes. These rules are binding on MRS members and MRS Company Partners
and breaches may result in disciplinary action. The guidance that follows the rules provides
interpretation and additional best practice. Members and Company Partners are reminded
that this document is designed to complement the MRS Code of Conduct and should not
be consulted in isolation.
As specified in the Code, it is the responsibility of the researcher to keep abreast of any
legislation which could affect research with employees and to ensure that all those involved
in a project are aware of and agree to abide by the MRS Code of Conduct.
This material is provided for information only. It is not legal advice and should not be
relied upon as such. Specific legal advice should be taken in relation to specific issues.
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The Principles of the MRS Code of Conduct:
1. Researchers shall ensure that participation in their activities is based on voluntary
informed consent.
2. Researchers shall be straightforward and honest in all their professional and
business relationships.
3. Researchers shall be transparent as to the subject and purpose of data collection.
4. Researchers shall respect the confidentiality of information collected in their
5. Researchers shall respect the rights and well being of all individuals.
6. Researchers shall ensure that participants are not harmed or adversely affected by
their professional activities.
7. Researchers shall balance the needs of individuals, clients, and their professional
activities.
8. Researchers shall exercise independent professional judgement in the design,
conduct and reporting of their professional activities.
9. Researchers shall ensure that their professional activities are conducted by persons
with appropriate training, qualifications and experience.
10. Researchers shall protect the reputation and integrity of the profession.
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Definitions
Definition of Mystery Shopping
Mystery shopping can be defined as the use of individuals trained to experience and
measure any customer service process, by acting as potential customers and in some way
reporting back on their experiences in a detailed and objective way. It differs from other
research techniques in that the evaluator does not declare his/her presence and the
participant is unaware at the time of the interaction that it is in any way different from a
normal customer contact. Ideally results from this technique should be used more for
directing training and for rewards schemes rather than for disciplinary purposes.
Participants in mystery shopping
Under the MRS Code of Conduct a Participant is any individual or organisation from or
about whom data is collected or is approached for interview. In mystery shopping,
information may be collected about individual employees, subject to the restrictions laid
down in the Code and in the Data Protection Act 1998. They should therefore be considered
to be Participants when interpreting the rules of the Code.
Interpreting the Code in mystery shopping
Special care should be taken in interpreting the code in the context of mystery shopping
as an interaction will not usually mirror a traditional research interview. Where it is
necessary to inform participants of collection of personal data for example this will have to
be done well in advance of the mystery shopping exercise, as opposed to the beginning of
the interaction. Please refer to the guidelines that follow for further information
When researchers use the mystery shopping technique for non-research activities (e.g.
investigatory journalism) researchers should also refer to the separate binding regulations
Using Research Techniques for Non-Research Purposes.
Definitions from the MRS Code of Conduct:
Anonymisation:
Anonymisation is the process of removing, obscuring, aggregating or altering identifiers to
prevent the likely identification using reasonable means of the individuals to whom the
data originally related.
Child:
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A child is a person under the age of 16.
Client:
Client includes any individual, organisation, department or division, including any
belonging to the same organisation as the member, which is responsible for commissioning
or applying the results from a research project.
Data Collection Process:
A data collection process is any process used to obtain information from or about
participants. It includes, but is not limited to, interviews, questionnaires, discussion guides,
and stimulus materials, as well as passive data collection.
Identity:
The identity of a participant includes, as well as their name and/or address, any other
information which offers a reasonable likelihood that they can be identified by any person
or organisation who has access to the information.
Informed consent:
Informed consent is a process by which a participant voluntarily confirms his or her
willingness to take part in a particular project, after having been informed of all aspects of
the project that are relevant to their decision to participate.
Member:
A Member is an individual who has been admitted to membership of MRS in one of the
categories set out the MRS Articles of Association.
For the purposes of applying this Code, an organisation with MRS members that has signed
the MRS Company Partner Service Quality Commitment that applies throughout the
organisation shall be treated as a Member.
Monitoring
Monitoring is the supervising of activities (such as data collection) to ensure that they meet
required objectives and performance targets.
Participant:
A participant is any individual or organisation from or about whom data are collected.
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Research:
Research is the collection, use, or analysis of information about individuals or organisations
intended to establish facts, acquire knowledge or reach conclusions.
Responsible Adult:
A responsible adult is an individual who has personal accountability for the well-being of a
child, for example a parent, guardian, teacher, nanny or grandparent.
Definitions from the Data Protection Act 1998 used in the MRS Code of Conduct
Personal Data
Data which relate to a living individual who can be identified-
(a) from those data, or
(b) from those data and other information which is in the possession of, or is likely to come
into the possession of, the data controller,
and includes any expression of opinion about the individual and any indication of the
intentions of the data controller or any other person in respect of the individual.
Data Subject
An individual who is the subject of personal data.
Data Controller
A person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the
purposes for which and the manner in which any personal data are, or are to be, processed.
Data Processor
Any person (other than an employee of the data controller) who processes the data on
behalf of the data controller.
Processing
Obtaining, recording or holding the information or data or carrying out any operation or
set of operations on the information or data, including—
(a) organisation, adaptation or alteration of the information or data,
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(b) retrieval, consultation or use of the information or data,
(c) disclosure of the information or data by transmission, dissemination or otherwise
making available, or
(d) alignment, combination, blocking, erasure or destruction of the information or data.
Third party
Any person other than—
(a) the data subject,
(b) the data controller, or
(c) any data processor or other person authorised to process data for the data controller
or processor.
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1: Planning the mystery shopping exercise
When planning a mystery shopping exercise, researchers should be aware of the ethical,
technical and legal problems that may arise.
The Rules
1. Members must ensure that research conforms to the national and
international legislation relevant to a given project, including in particular
the Data Protection Act 1998 or other comparable legislation applicable
outside the UK.
3. Members must act honestly in their professional activities.
6. Members must take all reasonable precautions to ensure that participants
are not harmed or adversely affected by the member’s professional
activities.
8. Members must take reasonable steps to design research to the
specification and/or quality standards agreed with the client.
16. Members must ensure that participants give their informed consent
where personal data are collected directly from them.
Guidance
1. To be ethical, and to accord with rule 16, informed consent means that the client’s
own staff must have been advised that their service delivery may be checked from
time to time through mystery shopping. Where regulatory bodies or sub-
contractors intend to use such projects to examine service levels provided, they
must ensure that the contracted party understands that this method of appraisal
will be used, and advise its staff accordingly. This could be in the form of a
newsletter or on the company website. With competitor organisations such
information cannot be conveyed and so personal information about employees
cannot be collected. Additionally, the competitor staff or organisation must not
suffer any detrimental effect as a result of a mystery shopping exercise.
2. To be relevant, the scenario must be designed to test the specific sales or service
behaviour that is the topic of study. Think of the training or instruction that staff
have been given on how to deal with a situation and come up with a scenario that,
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when delivered credibly, should result in staff delivering those desired actions. The
study can then test the extent to which this is the case.
3. To be credible, the scenario should be realistic, in that it mimics natural customer
behaviour in the market concerned and can be enacted convincingly by the mystery
shopper. While mystery shoppers must be thoroughly briefed, they must not
appear too slick or over-rehearsed. Overly sophisticated scenarios can result in the
staff guessing that the mystery shopper is not a real customer, compromising the
value of the study. As a general rule, the scenario itself should be straightforward,
so the mystery shopper can easily grasp it, with the detailed briefing focusing on
how to handle follow-up questions, so providing convincing ‘depth’ to the role. In
addition, mystery shoppers should fit the profile of appropriate customers, and have
a level of familiarity with the product field that is appropriate to the role they are
playing.
4. It is important to ensure that visits and/or telephone calls are made at an
appropriate spread of different times and locations, or that visits and/or telephone
calls are made at the same time if the project methodology so requires (such as for
bench marking). It could be expected that the time taken to speak to a member of
staff, and possibly the service received, might be affected by the time of day, week
or season when the research scenario takes place.
5. To be practical from the evaluation viewpoint, simplicity, brevity, and keeping the
assignment appropriate ensures experiences are correctly reported. It should be
borne in mind that mystery shoppers may have to remember their answers until
they are out of sight of staff, and the research should therefore be limited in length
and complexity to allow for this fact.
6. Whatever scenarios are used for mystery shopping, they must be safe in that the
mystery shoppers are not asked to do anything illegal or that puts them under any
physical risk or threatens their personal safety e.g. locality, disability, gender,
ethnicity. Care must be taken to protect mystery shoppers from any adverse
implications of carrying out an evaluation e.g. personal safety, effect on credit
references.
7. The questionnaire, evaluation forms or similar that the mystery shopper completes
should be objective, with the majority of questions focusing on factual information.
The primary aim is to document precisely what happened at the point of contact,
rather than how the mystery shopper feels. Objectivity will also help ensure
consistency across all of the evaluations conducted. However, some subjective
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ratings, such as the perceived confidence of staff and the mystery shoppers overall
satisfaction with the way their enquiry was handled, may be useful when
interpreting the results.
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2: Types of Mystery Shopping
A: Own Organisation
The Rules
16. Members must ensure that participants give their informed consent
where personal data are collected directly from them.
17. Members must ensure that they have a fair and lawful basis for the
collection and processing of personal data from sources other than the
data subject themselves.
34. Members must ensure that participants are informed about any recording,
monitoring or observation at recruitment and at the beginning of a data
collection process.
Comment: This does not include monitoring (listening to but not
recording) telephone interviews for the purpose of quality control where
interviewers have been informed that such monitoring takes place.
Comment: The objective of mystery shopping projects is to provide
management information on processes and/or quality of service, in order
to aid training and retraining plans, improvements in service and hence
increase customer satisfaction etc.
For mystery shopping exercises the ‘participant’ is the staff member who
is subject to the mystery shop and as such there are different levels of
allowable disclosure and data usage.
44. Where employees’ personal data are to be collected, Members must take
reasonable steps to ensure that:
a. the employees have been advised that their service delivery and/or
regulatory compliance may be checked through mystery shopping; and
b. the objectives and intended uses of the results have been made clear
to employees (including the level of reporting if at branch/store or
individual level); and
c. if mystery shopping is to be used in relation to any employment,
contractual, or regulatory terms and conditions, that this has been
made clear to the employees.
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Guidance
1. 34 means, in relation to mystery shopping, employees can be notified of mystery
shopping exercises in advance in employee contracts, staff handbooks, bespoke
communications, circulars or newsletters. Details need not be given on when
exactly the review will take place, exact details of aspects to be covered, or the
types of mystery shoppers to be used. In accordance with 34, employees must be
informed at this time if any form of recording will be used.
2. Employees should be informed of the types of elements to be covered, reporting
formats and channels of communication, and basis of mystery shopper recruitment
and training.
3. Names of staff members or identities through visual or sound recordings etc can be
revealed as long as appropriate communication as to this effect has been given (see
above). Clearance from unions or staff organisation representatives should be
sought in such cases.
4. In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, where visual or sound recordings
of individuals are held, as much information as possible about the future use of the
data must be given, in particular:
When they are to be used
To whom they are likely to be shown
For what purposes they are likely to be used
5. To protect the individuals, and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998,
restrictions on the future use of the data must be included in either the terms and
conditions, or the contract between the researcher and the client.
6. Procedures may need to be put in place to ensure that mystery shoppers are not
harassed.
7. The organisation should show employees the benefits of the technique and how to
use the results to encourage acceptance of, and engagement with, the process.
8. When evaluating staff whose income is commission based (automotive, financial
services, etc); consideration should be given to the length of time the mystery
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shopper will spend with the member of staff or provision of compensation for
potential loss of commission.
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B: Competitor Organisations
The Rules
45. Where employees cannot be advised that they may be mystery shopped,
members must ensure that employees are not recorded (e.g. by using
audio, photographic or video equipment) and that their identities are not
revealed by other information.
Guidelines
1. The length of time spent with a staff member should reflect the market and the
type of enquiry. The time should be kept as short as possible and should not be
seen to waste the competitor’s resources in any way other than a normal
customer enquiry might do.
2. The frequency of assessment of any one outlet/centre should be considered in
relation to the whole organisation and particular individuals must not be targeted
such that it disrupts or slows normal business.
3. Data must be reported at an aggregated level and not at individual contact level.
4. The preparation of any follow-up paperwork by the competitor organisation should
be kept to a minimum and reflect a normal transaction.
5. The evaluation should not specifically require a follow-up call to the mystery
shopper, unless this is a normal part of the transaction that is the subject of the
research.
6. Time spent other than with a staff member e.g. observing or auditing does not fall
into this time limit. However this activity should not unduly disrupt the customer
flow or staff member activities in any way.
7. Ideally the mystery shopper should make a purchase that reflects the type of
business of any given outlet e.g. petrol from a petrol station rather than a key
ring.
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C: Regulatory and Other Bodies
The Rules
44. Where employees’ personal data are to be collected, Members must take
reasonable steps to ensure that:
a. the employees have been advised that their service delivery and/or
regulatory compliance may be checked through mystery shopping; and
b. the objectives and intended uses of the results have been made clear
to employees (including the level of reporting if at branch/store or
individual level); and
c. if mystery shopping is to be used in relation to any employment,
contractual, or regulatory terms and conditions, that this has been
made clear to the employees.
45. Where employees cannot be advised that they may be mystery shopped,
members must ensure that employees are not recorded (e.g. by using
audio, photographic or video equipment) and that their identities are not
revealed by other information.
Guidance
1. Where regulatory bodies or sub-contractors intend to use such projects to
examine service levels, they must ensure that the contracted party understands
that this method of appraisal will be used, and inform staff that they might be
identified during the course of the exercise. If these actions have not been
undertaken the study must be conducted as if on a Competitor Organisation i.e.
information about identifiable individuals must not be collected or processed in
any way.
2. If the contract between the 2 parties states that mystery shopping will be used by
way of evaluation, staff within the organisation must be informed of this fact.
Where this has happened, any project can be conducted as if on one’s own
organisation.
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3: Quality Control
The Rules
3. Members must act honestly in their professional activities.
4. Members must take reasonable steps to ensure that others do not breach
or cause a breach of this Code.
Comment: This includes:
Members taking reasonable steps to ensure that the people with whom
they work (including for example other members, non-member
practitioners, colleagues, clients, consultants, sub-contractors) are
sufficiently familiar with this Code that they are unlikely to breach or
cause it to be breached unknowingly or unintentionally, and, members
with responsibility for implementing processes, procedures and contracts,
taking reasonable steps to ensure that they are such that this Code is
unlikely to be breached or caused to be breached by others unknowingly
or unintentionally.
9. Members must take reasonable steps to ensure that the rights and
responsibilities of themselves, clients, and sub-contractors are governed
by a written contract and/or internal commissioning document.
Comment: The Data Protection Act 1998 requires contracts for the
processing of personal data to be in writing.
Guidance
1. Mystery shoppers should be given the amount of training and briefing required by
each project.
2. The client and agency should agree the following:-
Profile of mystery shopper team
Training and briefing requirements
Field monitoring processes
Quality control
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3. ISO 20252 and IQCS include elements relating to mystery shopping. These
include the validation of data by means of computer and logic checks plus
collection of any documentation confirming the contact.
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4: Agency Responsibilities to ‘shoppers’
The Rules
46. Members must take reasonable steps to ensure that mystery shoppers
are informed of the implications, and protected from any adverse
implications, of conducting a mystery shopping exercise.
Comment: For example, mystery shoppers must be made aware by the
member that their identity may be revealed to organisations/individuals
being mystery shopped if they use personal cards to make purchases,
loan arrangements, etc., and credit ratings may be affected.
Guidance
1. It is the responsibility of the agency to ensure that mystery shoppers are aware
that they may be identified during the project, For example
Mystery shoppers should be made aware that their identification could be
revealed if the telephone receiver has caller identification technology.
Mystery shoppers should be made aware that their identity may be revealed
if personal credit or debit cards are used to make online purchases.
Mystery shoppers making multiple visits to a website should ensure that they
delete any cookies before connecting to the website. This will reduce the
likelihood of identification of the mystery shoppers.
2. It is the responsibility of the agency to ensure that a mystery shopper is paid
promptly for all purchases made for any project.
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Notes
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MRS
The Old Trading House
15 Northburgh Street
London EC1V 0JR
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7490 4911
Fax: +44 (0)20 7490 0608
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.mrs.org.uk
Company limited by guarantee. Registered in England No 518686. Registered office as
above.